Chapter II

So far I have said little about my efforts at playwriting. I have always had aspirations to the stage, and no interest in “closet dramas”; I wanted to write for producers, actors, and audiences. But, alas, I had to write on subjects that appealed to few in those groups. Stage plays are supposed to portray things as they are, and I wanted to portray things as they ought to be--or to portray people trying to change them. I spent a lifetime learning the lesson that no matter how real such characters may be, no matter how lively their struggles may be, no producer thinks that the public wants to see or hear them.

One day I estimated that I had written thirty plays; half a dozen of them one-acters, and the others full length. On the same day, oddly enough, I received a letter from a graduate student who has been doing research on my collection at Indiana University. He told me that in half a year of research and reading he had found a total of twenty-eight plays--thirteen published and fifteen unpublished. (I had two others in my home.) The list may interest other students.

Revolutionary or reform themes: _Co-op_; _Depression Island_; _Singing Jailbirds_; _The Second-Story Man_; _After the War Is Over_; _Oil!_; _Prince Hagen_.

Indirect demands for reform: _The Machine_; _The Millennium_; _Doctor Fist_; _The Great American Play_; _John D_; _Love in Arms_; _Bill Porter_; _The Grand Duke Lectures_; _The Pamela Play_; _The Saleslady_; _The Convict_; _The Naturewoman_; _Hell_.

Those on topical subjects: _A Giant’s Strength_; _The Enemy Had It Too_.

Nonreform subjects: _The Pot Boiler_; _Marie and Her Lover_; _The Emancipated Husband_; _The Most Haunted House_; _Wally for Queen_; _Cicero_.

Lost and forgotten: _The Jungle_ dramatization.